spiked | Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech: "Whoever thought that serious commentators would want it made illegal to have a row about the weather? One Australian columnist has proposed outlawing ‘climate change denial’. ‘David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial’, she wrote. ‘Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.’ (1) Others have suggested that climate change deniers should be put on trial in the future, Nuremberg-style, and made to account for their attempts to cover up the ‘global warming…Holocaust’ (2)."

Sometimes there is a knowing authoritarianism in green activism. The posters advertising George Monbiot’s new book are targeted at various celebrities and businessmen judged to be living less than ethical green lives, with the words ‘GEORGE IS WATCHING YOU’ (12). It comes straight out of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Some institutions employ Orwellian doublespeak when they use the word ‘facts’. They are not talking about submitting theories or hypotheses or evidence for public debate and possibly public approval – they are talking about using ‘facts’ precisely to stifle public debate and change the way people think and behave.

-isn't interesting how when the left give up God and have to invent their own lousy substitutes, they still revel in making other people into devils and witches, with all the skill of a medieval bishop? The primitive nature of this ideology is scary indeed.

However, this is the first time I've really noticed there is a movement to outlaw "climate change denial". Regarding this, can someone tell me if those who believe there is some warming going on, but who doubt it is human or CO2 induced, are still placed in the camp of the Nazis?

If you read through the comments on this post over at Greg Mankiw's blog you'll see blind acceptance of "the problem" by a herd of Harvard students whose sole concern appears to be the correct method of taxing air. I know that economics begins with a false assumption but those folks are setting new standards for gullibility.

There is a logic to outlawing discussion on a subject just as there is a logic to believeing an assumption based upon false "hope". Dystopias aren't created in a single day, yaknow.

Nuttin' like a spirited discussion of Pigovian taxes to further brighten a beautiful Tuesday morn. Thank Gaia for "elite" economists (and, of course, the Pigou Club where they gather to plot future troughs).

Be sure to read the article Tim points to in the Sunday Tasmanian where you will learn that environmentalists in NZ seem to claim that "A PULP mill in Tasmania will bring HIV, melt the skifields in New Zealand, cause international diplomatic incidents and, to cap it all off, create a crisis in the Australian economy.".

WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. "I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view."

Another said: "I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot." Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: "Sod off, Swampy."

Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange in the City near Tower Bridge on the day that the Kyoto Protocol came into force.

Protesters conceded that mounting the operation after lunch may not have been the best plan.